The main issue is that the bitcoin application was designed as an end-user P2P program. (And a proof of concept?) I see it being highly successful in this arena.
However, from the perspective of the merchant (myself, and others) payment automation is currently impossible. :/ We could fork off a console-only version or perhaps just put in some defines that can be switched on at compile time to remove the X11/wxwidgets stuff and switch on a control API. I hope for the latter.
Payment automation needs to be addressed to expand the market that accepts bitcoin as a payment method.
Thanks. 😊